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Windows seemingly lost 400 million users in the past three years — official Microsoft statements show hints of a shrinking user base (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Microsoft EVP Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog post last week that Windows powers over a billion active devices globally. This might sound like a healthy number, but according to ZDNET, the Microsoft annual report for 2022 said that more than 1.4 billion devices were running Windows 10 or 11. Given that these documents contain material information and have allegedly been pored over by the tech giant’s lawyers, we can safely assume that Windows’ user base has been quietly shrinking in the past three years, shedding around 400 million users.

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[–] 95 points 1 year ago (17 children)

1/3 of its Windows customers, not of all of its customers. I bet they still make plenty of money with Azure and Office 365.

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  • [–] 68 points 1 year ago (14 children)

    Precisely. Windows is a side project for Microsoft now.

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  • [–] 38 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    Especially since the majority of computer users worldwide now no longer use a PC to do their computing. The average consumer now uses Windows only at work. Their personal device, whatever it is, runs Android or is some manner of iDevice, two platforms which have thoroughly eaten Microsoft's lunch.

    It's too bad for Microsoft that their mobile platform -- Windows Mobile, er, I mean Windows 8 RT, er, actually it was Pocket PC, um, no wait, it was Windows CE, et. cetera -- all bombed so spectacularly, and the most recent one mere moments before Google took over the world.

    I imagine Microsoft is no longer eyeing private users as a cash cow except purely as advertising targets.

    It's only a matter of time before some brilliant dipshit over there manages to envision Windows as a subscription service aimed solely at businesses, and the days of Windows as a standalone OS will be over.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

    I could imagine a future where Windows is just a proprietary DE over a Linux system. I don’t think it’s coming anytime soon because of the development cost it would impose, but I don’t see why they would go to such efforts maintaining a system they could get for free if the desktop user base keeps shrinking. They’re just too greedy not to do that. Even the backwards compatibility with Windows software is becoming a solved problem.

    Aside from my above rant, the PC is definitely fast becoming an enthusiast/business platform. I opened a retirement account the other day through my smart phone!

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    MS did a shift like that already. The shift from MS-DOS to NT was transparent to the vast majority of people to the point that most people didn't realize they were two different OSes.

    I don't see why they couldn't do it again. NTVDM was similar in concept to what wine does. Imagine if MS actively contributed to wine, or a wine like project.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Been saying exactly that for years but it hasn't happened yet.... It will when the last people (like my age) want to use Windows at home, but by then Macs will have gone as well because the pc as we know it will be finished. I can see pcs as such being gone in say 10 years and it will all be mobile devices as such, and I include laptops in that. Wifey has just lost the last installed program needed for her work from home. All web/connected apps to work from now, and when they go down the whole company stops work(ing). Lost 3 whole days this year so far as the whole company couldn't function for various reasons

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    i was a MS employee once. Windows hasn't been their focus since Windows XP. Once they discovered the profit margins of Office 98... Windows was just a way to keep you using Office

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    This makes sense. I have a friend from way back in HS who interned there while he was working on his degree who said that cloud services was the priority at the time, and Windows was more just a vehicle that they continued to maintain. That continues to be the approximate temperature of the product and is in line with my expectations.

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